Their Second Chance
by Callie8M
Summary: "Death doesn't stop true love, Spike. This isn't the end. It's only just the beginning," They say every road comes to an end, but sometimes the end turns out to only be only the beginning. Even when you think you think that you've gone so far, never to return, you can suddenly find yourself right back where you started. Sometimes you get a second chance. This was theirs. One-shot.


**Authors Note: I was really tired today and decided to go to bed early, and I just had a dream about this and woke up and had to write it. I think the whole vision of the last battle in earlier seasons thing has been done before, but I couldn't find any similar to this or from this early in the show. And I just want to warn you, there might be some mistakes that I didn't catch because I'm so tired out from all my exams today, but I tried. So enjoy!**

**Rights: I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the characters that inhabit the Buffyverse. Or Spike. Sigh. But this story, except from dialogue taken from the show, is all mine. Don't steal, plagiarism isn't cool. Unlike you guys :)**

_"Death cannot stop true love, it can only delay it for a little while,"_  
_- The Princess Bride_

The day went from bad to disastrous faster than you can say vampires.

Balancing high school and being the Slayer is hard enough without both worlds suddenly deciding to screw you over and combine on your parent teacher night. There's no way I can slay the undead _and_ Principal Snider. This all Xander's fault, him and his stupid jinxing everything.  
One minute Mom has her "you're grounded for life" face on and forcing me out to the car, and then suddenly the window is getting shattered and there he is. That blond guy from the alley outside the Bronze, surrounded by his minions. Spike.

"What can I say? Couldn't wait," he smiled around his fangs and lunged.

I threw a chair and he crumpled to the ground while I grabbed Mom and pulled her and the other few parents left away to safety in a science classroom.

I convinced them to stay put and I quickly pulled myself up into the ceiling. It was a bad day to wear a skirt.

I tried to crawl through the wires and insulation as quietly as possible while trying to remember the layout of the school through my slight internal panicking. Just calm down, Buffy. Remember Giles's breathing exercises. I took a deep breath and continued.

I broke through the ceiling tiles, hoping for the best. I dropped right into the library in front of Giles. It warmed my heart how fatherly he was being, trying to go out to fight with me and protect me, but I was the Slayer. I had to do this alone. And I needed him to get Mom and those others out. I couldn't think about what I'd do if she didn't make it out of here. I pushed that out of my mind, got the weapons I came for, explained the plan to Giles and went back up into the ceiling.

I held my breath, slowly and carefully going through again trying not to make a sound. I needed the element of surprise. That was the only thing I had. I gasped as a metal pole broke through a tile right in front of me. Well damn.

I hurried along and dropped through to kill a vamp that was about to break into the science room across the hall. After making sure Mom was ok, I peeked around the corner and suddenly I felt a presence behind me.

"Sheila! Where have you been?" I went over to her.

"There are some really weird guys outside," she replied lazily, a small smirk on her lips.

Not any weirder then the guys you hangout with, I thought.

"I know, they're trying to kill us," I whispered.

"Well, this should be fun," she bent down and picked up an axe.

Great. Just the kind of backup every demon hunter wants; a probably high teenage delinquent. Awesome. I sighed and turned back around.

"Stay behind me," I told her, realizing she was probably going to do something stupid and get both of us killed.

At the same time as someone screamed, "Buffy, look out!" I felt them, the vamp tinglies. Coming from Sheila. I turned just in time. I killed the guy that came but let her run off; I had more important things to do right now.

I snuck around the corner just as Spike's minions run out the door after Angel and Xander. He turned around saying something about my blood. I was too busy planning my attack strategies. And you know, an exit one in case I needed it. Not that I would.

"Do we really need weapons for this?" I nodded at the pole in his hands and the axe clutched in mine.

"I just like them. They make me feel all manly," Spike's voice dropped to a deep purr and his hand ran down his stomach, drawing attention to the man-parts he had been referring too.

"You said Saturday," I ignored the way my heart skipped a beat when his had got dangerously close to his belt.

"I missed you," he pouted, before smiling again.

"You shouldn't have come here," I told him, trying to sound menacing.

"I know. But I just got so bored," he was laughing at me.

I tried not to show how surprised I was that he was talking back to me, dueling first with words instead of fists, unlike the usual vamp. But then again, I could tell from the moment I saw him that Spike was no usual vampire. I pushed that thought away as the fighting began.

Man, he was strong. And really, really good. I knew I was losing, knew it was over when he knocked me to the ground and raised that beam over my head. I took a shaking deep breath and raised my eyes to his; waiting.

And that's when it happened. My eyes were open but I didn't see Spike. Was I dead? Didn't death hurt?

And then I saw flames, fire, blood and dirt everywhere. The ground was shaking; it was like there was another apocalypse. I looked up and standing in front of me was none other then Spike. But he looked different then he did a moment ago, not like he had aged exactly, since vampires don't get old, but like he had matured. He was different, and he was smiling at me.

That's when I noticed the necklace on his chest glowing. What the hell was going on?

"I love you," I heard myself say, but I had no idea why.

What was happening? It was like I had no control over my body.

"No you don't, but thanks for saying it," Spike looked at me sadly, like his heart was breaking as he said it.

My own heart ripped in half from the look of love and loss in his blue eyes. It was too dark in that alley to really see him, but as I looked at the vampire now without his demon face, I realized he was beautiful.

"Now get outta here. I wanna see how it ends," he smiled bitterly, looking to the sky, and I realized that the cave we were in was about to collapse.

But I couldn't leave. Because whoever I was in this dream was in love with Spike. And they were scared of what that meant; they had closed off all that a long time ago. Because love makes you think, makes you feel, and it's harder to survive when you run on your heart, not your instincts. Because it hurts. Because they leave. And this girl, she didn't want to deal with the hurt. Didn't want to feel anything. It was as if she was dead inside, I thought. And she wanted to be. Because it was easier. But she had said it, the thing that she had never told him. To be honest, she didn't know. But now that it was out, I felt my heart swell with love for Spike that this girl had for him. She did love him, more then anything in the world.

"Gone on! Go!" Spike shoved me towards what must be the exit, but I just calmly walked back over the trembling ground to stand in front of him.

"No," was all I said.

"This place is going down! Leave!" he shouted, grabbing me and shove me again, but I grabbed onto his own arms and refused to budge.

"_No_. We're going to survive this. We've gone through so much together, we can survive this. I'm staying," I told him, looking up into his face and wishing he would believe me.

I didn't understand what was going on, what was making me say these things but it felt…right.

"Wh…why?" his brow furrowed and his voice creaked

"Because I'm in love with you. And I'm not about to leave just when I realized it," I walked into his arms and hugged him.

"I love you so much, Buffy, but you have to leave, pet," He said, but wrapped his arms around me and crushed me to his chest anyway.

"I'm staying right here," I felt the necklace between our bodies burn warmth and the earth beneath our feet shifted.

It was coming. I could tell we only had moments left.

"I can't let you do this, you don't have to, luv. Go out and live your life. I can't let both us die here and stop you from getting everything you want," he pulled away slightly and put his hands on either side of my face to tip it back slightly so I would look into his eyes.

I smiled even as through the pain of touching the necklace.

"Everything I want is right here. And death doesn't stop true love, Spike. It just delays it a little while. This isn't the end. It's only just the beginning," I touched his cheek, and leaned in to kiss him.

I had no idea why, but something told me it wasn't the first time we had kissed, but I knew it was the one that meant the most.

As the ground gave out and our bodied turned to fire, I looked into his eyes one last time and said, "You are my champion".

The glimpse of the look in his eyes told me how much that meant to him. And then the world was black.

And then it wasn't. Spike dropped the beam, stumbling back from me, tripping over something and falling to the floor. I took a shaking breath, still feeling the burning of the fire on my skin. It stopped after a moment and I looked next to me into the startlingly blue eyes of Spike. His vamp face was gone and he looked just as freaked as I imagined I did.

"What the bloody hell was that?" he breathed.

He had seen it to? Well, that made me feel like less of a freak. But that rules out Slayer vision, though. I took a deep, shaking breath to clear the confused tornado of thoughts from my head.

Those words from that cave echoed in my ears, "Death doesn't stop love, Spike. It just delays it a little while. This isn't the end. It's only just the beginning"…what the hell did that mean?

"Did you see it too?" Spike asked, looking down at himself to see if he had changed in some way.

"All with the burning and sad, lovey stuff. Yeah. I saw it. More like felt it, though. It was like I was really there or something," I whispered.

He nodded.

"Me too,"

"Major weird," I tried to smile, but failed miserably.

"Bloody right," he agreed.

I looked over at him, and his eyes slowly moved from the ground to meet mine, and suddenly there were a million things that I wanted to say, but no idea how.

"Buffy!" someone screamed and I turned away from Spike to see my Mom come barreling around the corner.

She rushed over and grabbed me up into a hug.

"Are you ok? Oh, I was so worried!" she looked me over and sighed in relief once she saw I wasn't bleeding or anything.

"Shaken, but I'm ok, Mom, really," I told her, pulling away to look back over to where Spike had been seated.

He was gone. I was surprised at the disappointment I felt. It's not like I wanted to die, it's that dream visiony thing. It felt so real…

"Let's get you home," Mom said, hurrying me out of the school as fast as possible.

At home, I let her fuss over me for a while and help me get ready for bed, but at eleven I forced her out of my room to get some sleep, trying to convince her I was fine.

I sighed, grabbing my diary and going over to sit by the window. I opened it for some air. It was almost a full moon tonight, so there was enough light for me to write down what had happened today. But when I got to thinking about the dream that Spike and I shared, I knew I couldn't write about what happened. There were no words to describe what I felt during the whole thing, no words that would do it justice.

So in today's entry, all I wrote was one word: Spike.

"It's only just the beginning…," I whispered aloud, staring out at the darkness outside the glass.

And something in my gut told me it was.

"Don't screw it up this time. We like you two, but you only get one second chance," the wind whispered.

I smiled slightly, looking down at the paper, running my finger over Spike's name. My brain couldn't comprehend what it was talking about, but somewhere deep inside my soul, I understood.

"I know. And I won't waste it. Thank you,"

**A/N: Yes, I did change some of the dialogue. And no, I didn't forget anything, anything that was not in here that was in the actual episode of School Hard was intentionally cut out. Hope you all like it! Don't forget to review! Constructive criticism is encouraged and appreciated!**


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